Favorite long shots at the PGA Honda Classic
Pamela Maldonado gets you set for this weekend's PGA tournament in Florida with her best underdogs with favorable odds heading into the Honda Classic. Make sure to stay tuned all week here on Yahoo Sportsbook Daily. We have more NHL wagers and NBA on tap.
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Video Transcript
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PAMELA MALDONADO: Welcome to the Yahoo Sportsbook Daily. It is Wednesday, February 23. I am your betting guide, Pamela Maldonado, here to talk some golf.
The PGA moves west to east from California to Florida for the Honda Classic. The course, PGA National, a par-70, over 7,000 yards with Bermuda grass greens. It is a difficult one.
Originally, a Tom Fazio design. It was redesigned by Jack Nicklaus, who is known for making courses difficult. With narrow fairways, windy conditions, one of the toughest courses on TOUR. There are loads of bunkers to avoid.
Players have to also be accurate with their iron shots as water does come into play on 15 of the 18 total holes. In fact, there is a three-hole stretch from 15 to 17 and dubbed "the bear trap." It has played a combined 230 over par last season. And one crazy nugget, over 1,600 balls have been found in the water in the bear trap since 2017.
You might want to avoid Ryan Palmer this week, because specific to the bear trap, Palmer holds the honor for the most balls in the water with 17 water dunks since 2007. He's actually a 40 over par with these three holes in his career. That is the worst of any golfer on tour since 2007.
Now, that being said, absolutely anyone can win the Honda Classic, as we just saw last year with Matt Jones, who won this event and it was his first win in seven years. But before that, he had just four top 20 finishes and 7 missed cuts in his previous 26 starts.
Do make sure to check out my video preview at the Yahoo Sports Book for two players that I like to win. Here, I want to talk about some of the longer shots because it's an absolute great week to fire on some of those long balls.
Starting first with Cameron Young. His odds plus-225 for a top 20, 50 to 1 for a win. The New Yorker is 113 in the official World Golf rankings and just turned pro in 2019, playing in just 12 PGA events since and already has two runner-up finishes-- second in the Sanderson Farm Championship in October and second in last week's Genesis Invitational.
If I'm looking for ball strikers, he's it. Gaining strokes off the tee in eight of his last nine events and gaining strokes putting in six. In the Genesis, Young gained nearly 10 strokes ball striking. That could absolutely come in handy on this week's difficult course in Florida.
The second player that I like is not as much of a long shot, but it's Alex Norén. His odds plus-170 for a top 20, and 33 to 1 for a win. Norén has zero wins on TOUR and just 15 top-15 finishes. Yet, he is one of the top 10 players on the odds' board. Tell me that's a little fishy to you. That makes things very interesting as to why his odds would be so low.
Regardless, Norén, he does well on Jack Nicklaus courses with a few top 20s, including T-13 in last year's The Memorial Tournament. Norén's stats, they won't pop off the page, but he does also have a T-6 at the Phoenix Open from just a couple of weeks ago. He's not long off the tee, but he does excel in his short game. Hey, you know what? Every golfer didn't have a win until they did.
So those are two of the longer shots that I like for the Honda Classic, looking at Cameron Young and Alex Norén. You can follow me on Twitter over @pamelam35. And do make sure to follow all of our content over at the Yahoo Sportsbook.
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